TWO 



COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESSES 



GENERAL GRANT. 



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TWO ADDRESSES 



COMMEMORATIVK OF 



GENERAL GRANT 



DELIVKKKO AT 



BOSTON. .11 LV -20, 188.-), 



WORCESTER, AUGUST 8, 1885. 



BV 



BR.-MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES DEVENS. 

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[privately printed.] 



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T' R E S S OF CHARLES II A M I L T O N , 

311 Main Street. 

1885. 




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ADDRESS. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

On July 26, 1885, a meeting of the citizens of Boston was 
called at Faneuil Hall, at 12 M., to express their feeling on 
receiving the sad intelligence of the decease of General Grant 
on July 23. The meeting was opened by impressive remarks 
from the Mayor, Hon. Hugh O'Brien, who concluded by inviting 
His Excellency Governor Robinson to preside. After prayer 
by Rt. Rev. Bishop Mallalien, of New Orleans, and an eloquent 
address by his Excellency, appropriate resolutions were presented 
by Ex-Mayor F. O. Prince. 

General Devens said — 

Your Excellency, Fellow-citizens : — 

A NATION has watched by the dying couch of its greatest 
citizen. The leader of its armies in battle, the head of its 
civil government in peace, anxiety, hope and fear have 
contended, until at hist it l)ecame certain that human etforts 
were in vain, and that he who had been its tower of strength 
in the hour of a people's agony was to pass from among 
living men. Well may a nation swell the funeral cry for 
him whose strong hand and daring heart secured and 
protected its life. 

As he has waited in the august majesty of impending 
death there have seemed to gather round him the tender 
memories of all who offered their lives for country in our 
ofreat civil strife. The crowds that collected about his 
house in the great city, when some two or three months 
ago his death seemed immediate, were not mere curiosity- 
seekers — there were fathers and brothers ; there were 



mothers that had uiven IhcMi- sons; there were gh'ls 
(ehlerly women now) who had uiven up their lovers. To 
nie these ur()U})s seem inlinilely aHeetin<2,-, for they were 
those who in that struogle had parted forever from their 
hest and nol)k'st. To tiie great chieftain who had led their 
brave through so many a hot and bloody day they In'ought 
the unite offerino: of their reverence and Ion c, for it was 
to him they owed that those nohle lives had not been 
sacrificed in vain. As he was the chieftain, so he was the 
representative of the Federal army : that army which 
springing from the t)eo))le itself vindicated the integrity of 
the American Union, swe))l from its States the curse of 
slaver}', and lifted a nation to a higher and nobler life. 
Long since that gnvdt army has passed away, yet it shall 
not be forgotten that in its day and generation and in its 
time and i)lace it did for this country deeds worthy of 
inmiortal honor. It is twenty-four years since the great 
l)attle-summer of 18(n. To each of us they have l)rouglit 
joy and sorrow' in their mingled web, but we turn back to 
that time freshly still as the tolling bell and the muflled 
drum ainiounce that Grant has simk to his tinal re})Ose. 

" Ne'er to the cliamlxu-s where the niij^hty rest 
Since their foundation eanie a nobler truest." 

To-day is not one for criticism even if it l»e candid and 
not unkindly. Our sense of loss is too acute, our emotions 
are too keen. Nor i)erhai)s at any time could those of us 
who have followed him, who have known w'hat it was to 
lean upon that determined will, who have seen hiui with 
the light of battle on his cheek, assume to speak of 
him with the cold neutrality of im})artial histor3\ If to 
that great tribunal all must come we are not competent to 
sit thereon as judges. Some future historian, some Park- 
man, some Bancroft, shall c()mi)are him with the great 
Captains of antiipiity or of modern history, shall weigh in 
nice scales his successes or his failures, the means at his 
command, the purposes he had in view, the results he 



finally accomplished, and shall then assign him his appro- 
])i-iate place. High although it must be, for this I shall 
care little, for his name is written indelibly upon a noisier 
list. His place is not with the Cajsars and the Hannibals, 
the Fredericks or Najjoleons and the conquerors of earth 
who have waded to fame or empire through l)lood and 
carnao-e, but with those who in the hour of danger and 
distress have l)orne u^jou their shoulders the weight of 
mighty States, avIio have preferred jjatriotism, duty and 
honor to any selfish aggrandizement, who have drawn the 
sword reluctantly, who have sheathed it willingly when 
the time for reconciliation had come, and at the head of 
whom stands peerless and immortal our own Washington. 
His fame like that of Washington shall form forever one of 
the brightest jewels in the radiant crown of the Republic. 
It shall broaden and widen as her domains shall spread, as 
her vast and fertile wastes shall l)e peopled, and as great 
cities shall rise where to-day only the hum of the wild l)ee 
breaks the stillness of the fragrant air. Yet to no genera- 
tion of men can he be all that he has been to us. Already 
to many almost api^roaching middle life his achievements 
are but historical. But with us, who were of his time, there 
is a personal love and veneration toward him which cannot 
be communicated to others. All around him throughout 
the broad land there stretches the wide circle of those who 
perhaps never looked upon his bodily presence that feel 
his loss as a personal grief. He has so inwrought himself 
with their just and patriotic feeling in the years that are 
past that to them the earth itself seems less fair, this 
o-oro-eous, odowino- summer less bright, now that he is gone. 
Willingly would I speak some words that shall tell the 
love we have borne him, the honor in which we hold his 
great deeds, the gratitude we have for all he has so 
splendidly done, but I realize how poor my utterance is. 

The mean and sordid pecuniary cares that vexed his 
closing years of life Ixit showed how truly resolute and 



upright he was. In selecting men in niilitaiy life in whom 
to repose confidence, his view wns singularly correct and 
just; it might he said to l)e pcrtect. lie was a soldier to 
the inmost core : he knew everything tiiat he needed then 
and made no mistakes. His cduc:ition and studies had not 
tittcd him with the same Judgment in civil life. It was an 
error of a trustful, generous nature that led him to stand 
by those in whom lie had once reposed confidence, even 
after there was legitimate reason for distrust. He gave 
generously and withdrew reluctantly, and thus as a civilian 
he was more than once grievously abused in oflicial life. 
That he should show the same disposition in dealing with 
his private and personal allaii's might have l)een anticipated. 
lUit it was an error which most cruelly he was compelled 
to answer. Betrayed I)y cunning, intriguing knaves, when 
financial ruin came he met it with the old calm resolution. 
He was ready at once to strij) himself of all he possessed, 
even of the very gifts which were the just memorials of his 
fame, that he might satisfy those who had trusted in him. 
Financial and commercial lionor were as dear to him as 
any other honor. Calmly imd resolutely he devoted him- 
self to those unaccustomed labors by which he hoped to 
jjrovide for those he was to leave behind him, and althouofh 
racking pains always assailed him, although the weary 
l>rain and the once strong hand from time to time refused 
their office, he had the satisfaction of knowing that what he 
had undertaken he had accomplished. Recognition of his 
great services, even if somewhat tardily, came in his 
restoration to that jjosition in the army which he had 
resigned in <)l)ediencc to the call of the country, and it was 
a profound gratification to him to feel, ene he passed 
away, that the pecuniary future of his family would be 
l)rovided for. Let them believe that the tenderest love of 
a grateful people will encompass them always. 

It is twenty years since the only name worthy to be 
mentioned with that of General Grant has passed into 



history. It seems like a caprice of fortune that while the 
great soldier of the war of the "Kebellion went almost 
unscathed through an hundred tights, its great statesman 
should die by the assassin's hand. As to the great Hebrew 
chieftain who had led Israel through the Red Sea a'nd the 
desert, it was ordained that he should but look on the 
promised land, so to Abraham Lincoln it was given but to 
know that the Union was restored, that his life's work was 
done, and to die in the hour of final triumph. Between 
these great men, from the day they met (and they had 
never seen each other's faces until after nearly three years 
of war) until the day Mr. Lincoln died, there had l)een the 
most generous confidence, the most trustful regard, the 
most firm faith that each had done in the past and would 
do in the future the utmost possible to sustain the other. 
How like a wonderful romance it reads, that in that time 
of less than three years from a simple captain, whose ofter 
of his services to the War Department was thought of so 
little consequence that the letter, although since carefully 
searched for, cannot be found. Grant had risen from rank 
to rank until he ))ecame the Lieutenant-General who was 
to unite all the military springs of action in a single hand, 
to govern them by a single will, to see (to use his own 
expression) that the armies of the LTnion pulled no longer 
"like a l)alky team," but were moved and animated by a 
single purpose. Yet his way had not been one of uninter- 
rupted success, and there had l)een no success that had not 
been won by his own wisdom and courage. He had seized 
and controlled the Ohio and held Kentucky in the Union, 
he had opened the Tennessee and the Cumberland by the 
victories of Forts Henry and Donelson, but the much- 
misunderstood battle of Shiloh had reduced him, uncom- 
plaining always, to a subordinate command under General 
Halleck, whose own failure at Corinth finally gave to him 
at last the command of all forces operating to open the 
Mississippi. Again and again during the often repeated 



repulses from \'ioksl)urg \\\ovo had been attempts to 
romove him, mainly at the instance of those who did not 
comprehend the vastness of the prol)lem with which he had 
to deal. Mr. Lincoln had stood by him, saying in his 
IxMuliar way, "1 rather like that man, I guess I Avill try 
hiiu a little longer," until at last Vicksburg was taken by a 
movement marked with the audacity of a master in the art 
of war who dares to violate established rules and make 
exceptions when great emergencies demand that great risks 
shall be run. The Fourth of July, \f>iu], was the proudest 
day the armies of the Union uj) to that time had ever 
known, for the thunders of the cannon that announced in 
the East the great victory of Gettysburg were answered 
from the West by those that told that the Mississippi in all 
its mighty length ran un vexed to the sea. 

His victory at Chattanooga followed the placing of the 
armies of the West under his sole control, and the time 
had come when he was to direct the armies of the whole 
Union. His i)lace was thereafter with the Army of the 
Potomac, as tht; most decisive point of struggle, although 
its immediate command remained with General Meade. 
It was only thus and through its vicinity to the Capital 
that he could direct every military o})eration. As he 
entered upon the great campaign of 1<S(;4, Mr. Lincoln 
said, ''If there is anything wanting which is within my 
power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now 
with a brave army and a just cause may God sustain you." 
And General Grant had answered, "Should my success l)e 
less than I desire or expect, the least I can say is the fault 
is not with you." Side by side they stood together thus 
through all the desperate days that ensued, until in April, 
181)'), the territic and protracted struggle was ended 
between the two great armies of the East ; the long tried, 
always faithful Army of the Potomac; held its great rival, 
the Army of North Virginia, in the iron embrace of its 
gleaming wall of bayonets, and the sword of Lee was laid 



in the conquering hand of Grant. Side by side Lincoln 
and Grant will stand forever in the Pantheon of history, 
and somewhere in the eternal plan we would willinoly 
believe those great spirits shall yet guard and shield the 
land they loved and served so well. 

Whatever General Grant's errors or his weaknesses — 
and he was mortal — like the spots on the sun they l)ut 
show the brightness of the surrounding surface, and we 
readily forget them as we remember the vast debt we owe. 
Whether without him we could have achieved success, it 
is certain that only through him we did achieve success. 
He was thoroughly patriotic, and his patriotism sprang 
from his faith in the American Union. He had been 
educated to the service of the Government ; he had looked 
to this rather than to the parties that exist under it, whose 
zeal sometimes leads men to forget that there can be no 
party success worth having that is not for the benefit of all. 
His political affiliations were slight enough, perhaps, but 
they had not been with the party that elected Mr. Lincoln. 
He knew well, however, that this frame of government 
once destroyed could never be reconstructed. He had no 
faith in any theory which made the United States powerless 
to protect itself. He comprehended fully the real reason 
why the Slave States, dissatisfied with just and necessary 
restraint, sought to extricate themselves from the Union, 
and he knew that a war commencing for its integrity would 
broaden and widen until it became one for the liberty of 
all men, and there was neither master nor slave in the land. 
His letter to his brother-in-law, lately published, although 
written during the first week of the war, his written 
remark to General Buckner, in their interesting interview 
just before he died, "that the war had been worth all that 
it had cost," show how strongly he felt that, purified by the 
fires of the Rebellion, the Union had risen grand and more 
august among nations. Who shall say he was not right? 

Who shall say that if all the noble lives so freely ofiered 

2 



10 

could 1)6 restored, lnit with Ihem imist return the once 
discordnni Union with its .system of . shivery, they who gave 
would consent to have them purchased at such a })rice? 

General Grant was not of those who supposed that the 
conllict with the South was to he any summer's day 
cami)aiiiii ; he knew the position of the South, its resources, 
its military capacity, and the fact that acting on the defen- 
sive it would move its armies on intericn- lines. He 
recognized the difhcidty in dealing with so vast im extent 
of territory, and he knew that in a war with a hostile i)eople 
rather than a hostile army only wc could often hold l)ut the 
tracts of territory innnediately under our camp tires. Yet 
he never douhted of ultimate success. He never helieved 
that this country was to be rent assunder by faction 
or dragged to its doom by traitors. He said to General 
Badeau once, who had asked him if the prospect never 
appalled him, that he had always felt i)erfectly certain 
of success. Thus though to him many days were dark 
and disastrous, none were despondent. "The simple faith 
in success you have always manifested," said Sherman 
to him, "I can liken to nothing else than the faith a 
Christian has in the Saviour." His remarkable persistence 
has caused him sometimes to be looked on as a mere 
dogged tighter. No suggestion could be more preposter- 
ous. He felt sure of his plan before he commenced, then 
temporary obstructions and dilliculties did not dismay him, 
and whatever were the checks he went on with resolution 
to the end. 

If stern and unyielding in the hour of conflict, in the 
hour of victory no man was ever more generous and 
magnanimous. He felt always that those with whom we 
warred were our erring countrymen, and that when they 
submitted to the inevitable changes that war had made, 
strife was at an end. But he never proi)osed to yield or 
tamper with what had been won for liberty and humanity 
in that strife. 



11 

He has passed beyond our mortal sight — sustained and 
soothed by the devotion of friends and comrades, by the 
love of a people, by the affectionate respect and regard of 
many once in arms against him. In that home where he 
was almost worshipped, "he has wrapped the drapery of 
his couch about him" as one that lies down to pleasant 
dreams. Front to front on many a field he had met the 
grim destroyer where the death-dealing missiles rained 
thick and fast from the rattling riHes and the crashing 
cannon. He neither quailed nor blenched, although death 
came at last with a summons that could not be denied, 
when all that makes life dear was around him. He could 
not but know he was to live still in memory as long as the 
great flag around which his fighting legions rallied should 
wave above a united people. To most men the call of 
death is terrible ; 

" But to the hero \vh(!U his sword has won 

The battl(! of the free 
That voice sounds like a prophet's word, 
And iu its liollow tones are heard 

The thanks of millions j'et to be." 



ADDERS S. 



PREFATOEY NOTE. 

On August 8, 1885, the day of the funeral ceremonies of 
General Grant, a meeting of the citizens of Worcester called by 
the City Council, was held on the Common. Business in the 
city was suspended and a vast multitude assembled. His 
Honor Mayor Charles G. Reed presided, and after prayer by 
Rev. D. O. Mears, D.D., and introductory I'emarks, presented 
IJ. S. Senator Hoar. Mr. Hoar's address was followed by that 
of General Devens, and the exercises were concluded by an 
eloquent address from the Rev. Fr. Conaty. 

General "Devens said — 

Mr. Mayor, Fellow -citizens : — 

When we who were soldiers of the Army of the Potomac 
first saw General Grant he was already illustrious. The 
ofreat battles on the Cumberland and Tennessee had been 
fought. Already the Mississippi rolled proudly to the 
sea; no rebel fortresses frowned from its banks, no rebel 
squadrons cruised upon its waters. His great victory at 
Chattanooga had repaired the disaster of Chickamauga, 
and the West seemed to ])e coming firmly within our grasp. 
Yet the war was pressing heavily, enormous del)ts were 
being contracted, thousands of brave men had fallen, and 
it was seen that thousands must yet fall before we could 
achieve the task we had undertaken. No wiser act was 
ever done l)y Congress than that which created for him the 
ofiice of Lieutenant-General, whose station might be with 
either armv as he might select, liut whose control and 
direction was to be o/;r all. His command over all the 



14 

armies operatina- west of the Alleghanies had fully demon- 
strated his vast ])owers of combination, his capacity for the 
widest fields of strategy, as well as his territic energy in 
battle when, this great responsibility was placed upon him. 
"If I succeed," he said solemnly, as he received his 
commission from the hands of the President, "it will be 
due to our brave armies, and above all to the favor of that 
Providence which leads both nations and men." 

He had been urged in accepting this high command to 
remain with the armies of the West. " Stay with us," 
said Sherman, "let us make it dead sure," but in the hands 
of Sherman himself and Thomas the West was "dead 
sure" already, and Grant knew that the time had come 
when he must more immediately measure himself "with 
the foremost army of the Confederacy led by its foremost 
man." He knew that to the great struggle between the 
armies of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia other 
operations, vast although they were, were subsidiary only. 
Two more tried, determined, l)etter armies the world had 
never seen. Battle, disease, defeat had wasted botli, 
victory had rewarded both, but for either to rout the 
other had been impossilde. Each when it won, had gained 
but a few miles or it might be rods of territory. Each as 
it drew off from a day of disaster drew off sternly in 
perfect order, and like "slow Ajax fighting still" retired. 

How complete (leneral Grant's control was over every 
oriranization of the Ignited States Armv from the day he 
took supreme conmiand, the records of the War Depart- 
ment bear witness ; as com})lete in general direction over 
that with which Sherman marched to the sea or that which 
Thomas directed to its splendid victory at Nashville as 
over that of the Army of the Potomac. Neither could 
falter or hesitate for advice or direction that he was not 
ready to afford it ; neither needed encouragement or urging 
that he was not ready to speak the words which the 
occasion demanded. Over the vast realm where the 



15 

gigantic conflict was raging that eagle eye ranged with 
far-seeing watchful gaze, anxious that nothing, however 
small, should escape his care in that one determined pur- 
pose of crushing the rebellion. While the great battle of 
the Wilderness was l)eing fought around him he was send- 
ing despatches to Sherman, more than a thousand miles 
away, as to his campaign. 

That his military genius was vast and comprehensive no 
one can question or deny. As a general he was thoroughly 
aggressive, alike froin natural character and from the 
military position in which he was always placed. He felt 
dcei)ly the suggestions sometimes made that he was hard 
and stern, or that he ever risked the life of a man need- 
lessly. He knew well that from his constant attacks his 
losses must of necessity be greater than that of the army he 
opposed, but he believed that (the advantage of position in 
standing on the defensive being always with the rebel 
army) the true way to close the war was to strike reso- 
lutely and hard, and that this was not in the long run to 
sacrifice, but to save life, although the immediate loss 
might be severe. No man ever felt more fully that the 
life of every soldier was his in solemn trust, and that it 
must not be wantonly imi)erilled. "I can not do that," 
he said once to General Halleck, who had recommended a 
particular attack, "it might succeed, but it would cost the 
lives of more men than I have a right to risk for such an 
advantage." 

He is often spoken of as if there were something myste- 
rious about his character, as if there were some riddle to 
unravel. This is evidently an error; no man had less 
desire to deceive others or less capacity to do it. He kept 
his own counsel it is true. He worked out his plans care- 
fully, but he was ready always to hear those who had any 
thing worth hearing. He carefully watched the plans of 
those opposed to him, using every available means to 
enlighten himself. He thoughtfully sought to learn what 



16 

was the best thing for an opponent to do, mid assumed that 
he would do it. If his opponent did any thing less than 
this so nnich the worse for him. He had measured himself 
in his career with every great general of the Confederacy ; 
he respected their abilities, but he had seen no reason to 
distrust his own. He had confidence in his own judgment, 
not from any silly or inflated vanity, but because he 
l)elieve(l he had mastered the })rol)lems submitted to it. 
Nothing was ever done b}' him in any half-hearted way 
or as if he felt that something l)etter might have been 
attem})ted. 

No general ever lived more calmly resolute. He by no 
means despised the wisdom of those who have written upon 
the art of war, or the soundness of the more general princi- 
ples which experience has prescribed. But he was no 
soldier of the l)ook or the school, and he dared to violate 
them when great occasion demanded. Alone in that army 
that beleaguered Vicksburg, surrounded by chiefs who 
shrank from no danoer throuoh which couraoe could con- 
duct them, he matured his final })lan for its capture, know- 
ing that any council of war would condemn it as too 
hazardous. Silent and self-contained, alone he determined 
ujjon it, never flinching, never doubting from the time his 
plan had its first conception until its triumphant close, he 
achieved the grand result by taking counsel of his own 
calm reflection, his own indomita))le will, his own daring 
heart. 

He was a thoroughly generous and just man in relation 
to the officers with whom he was associated, to the armies 
he led, to the armies to which he was opposed. It is hard 
for a soldier to be generous in matters which concern his 
own glory and renown, yet in regard to Fort Donelson and 
Shiloh he was so generous to his subordinates that his 
cordial words were used most unjustly to depreciate his 
own reputation and to detract from his own merits. He 
could not leave the armies of the West without thankiug: 



17 

them and their leaders for their devotion and expressing to 
them how strongly he felt, that all he had won for the 
country or gained for himself was due to them ; yet he was 
not less just to the brave army to which he more immedi- 
ately came. When the preparations for the last struggle 
in the spring of 1865 were being completed, there was a 
profound anxiety on his part that the war should l)e ended 
at once, and that Lee and Johnston should neither unite nor 
escape. Yet, when it was proposed to bring troops from 
the Western armies to add to the strength of the Army of 
the Potomac he opposed it. He felt it to be unwise, that 
jealousies would arise with the troops of the army of the 
West, each claiming that the victory was its own. He 
felt that it would not be generous to the Army of the 
Potomac. He had full confidence in its strength and 
courage to finish its work, and it would not be just that 
any other army should divide with it its final triumph. 
How well and thoroughly that great army struck its final 
blow, Appomattox testifies, and the surrender shows how 
generously he dealt with those who then laid down their 
arms. It was but in the line of the course he had pursued 
at Fort Donelson and Vicksburg. While he meant that 
the full fruits of the victory should be secured, while he 
never faltered in his determination that the permanency of 
the government should be clearly vindicated, while he 
never questioned that the States lately in rebellion could 
only be restored with every guaranty that the freedom of 
the race once enslaved should be protected, he would 
prescribe no conditions of surrender that could in any sense 
be deemed to be humiliating. 

We can not to-day undertake to fix with accuracy the 
character of our heroic leader by comparison with others 
whom history has rendered immortal, yet there is one 
historical sketch that bears so many points of resemblance 
that I shall venture to quote it. It was with much interest 
a few months since that we celebrated the founding of this 
3 



18 

town 200 years ago by three soldiers [one an officer of 
rank], who had served under Cromwell, and who, perhaps, 
had seen him that morning when in the pom'ing rain in 
which the hattlc of Worcester began, he rode down the 
line and bade his soldiers to "Trust in the Lord and keep 
their powder dry." The description which Macaulay gives 
of the great Puritan leader, whom our fathers loved and 
honored, finds almost its perfect parallel in General Grant. 
It is in an altogether imaginary dialogue, assumed to have 
been between the royalist poet Cowley and John Milton. 
I read the Avords as Milton is supposed to utter them, 
omitting but an unimportant fragment: "Because he was 
an ungraceful orator, and never said either in public or 
private anything memoral)le, you will have it that he was 
of mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. Many men have 
there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without 
eloquence, who yet had the wisdom to devise and the 
courage to- perform that which they lacked language to 
explain. Such men often have worked out the deliverance 
of nations and their own greatness, not by logic, not by 
rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness in danger, 
by firm and stubborn resolution in all adversity. The 
hearts of men are their books ; events are their tutors ; 
great actions are their eloquence ; and such a one in my 
judgment was his late Highness. * * * His own deeds 
shall avouch him for a great statesman, a great soldier, 
a true lover of his country, a merciful and generous 
conqueror." 

Fellow-citizens, it is a solemn day on which we part 
from all that was mortal in this illustrious man. If it be a 
day of mourning it is one of thankfuhiess and gratitude 
also. If much is taken from us it is because much was 
given to us. I contrast the noble and beautiful death of 
this patriot soldier with that of the mightiest con(jueror 
Europe ever knew, and bow in reverence before the oreat 



19 

Controller of events who has ordained that even in this 
world men are rewarded according to their works. 

There is in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington the 
l)eautiful statue by Vela of Napoleon as he is d\'ing at 
St. Helena. It is the saddest thing upon which my eyes 
have ever looked. The Emperor is sitting with his morn- 
ing gown half wrapped around his naked breast and on his 
lap lies outspread the map of Europe. The face, of 
wondrous beauty, is of unutterable grief. Wasted oppor- 
tunities, disappointed ambition, remorse — have set upon it 
their ineffaceable seal. His wife is far away, his only son 
a prisoner at the Austrian Court. Upon the throne of 
France, trampled as she is under the feet of the armies of 
Europe, sits again a Bourbon King, held there by foreign 
bayonets. He seems to recall the brave who have died by 
thousands, not that man might be nobler and better, but 
to minister to his thirst for dominion, his insatiate passion 
for power. He seems to remember that by his own acts 
he has brought ruin upon the people Avho had loved him 
devotedly and upon himself. In those last days, says his 
biographer, M. Thiers, he talked much of his old compan- 
ions. "Shall I see them again, Desaix and Lannes, Murat 
and Ney." Ah, what comfort could there be in that — 
Lannes, who on the field of Essling, dying, had said to 
him, "Sire, you will ruin ever3^thing by these constant 
wars," or ^Nlurat and Ney who for him had died deaths not 
altogether honorable to themselves, even if disgraceful to 
those who inflicted them. Or what comfort to him to see 
again that splendid youth of France who had followed him 
from the sands of Egypt to the snows of Eussia, the only 
reward of whose valor had been the destruction of their 
own liberty and country. 

As we turn in sorrow from this scene which the cunning 
hand of the artist has made so hfe-like, we behold that 
which has been enacted almost before our own bodily eyes. 
It is sixty-five years later and another sits in his chair to die. 



20 

Upon him is the same mortal disease although in a for 
more aaoniziiio- form. His face had never the Olympian 
beauty of the great emperor; it is marked now with the 
heavy lines that princely care and rugged war have 
impressed deep upon it, l)ut it is grave and majestic still. 
The broad brow and heavy jaw tell alike of the calm 
thought and resolute will which show him tit to be among 
the kings of men. He has led great armies on fields as 
fiercely contested as Wagram or Austerlitz, or Waterloo 
itself, and a million of men have sprung at his trumpet-call. 
He too has ruled as constitutional magistrate over a realm 
l)r()ader and fairer than France itself. Life has to him 
been labor and duty, and until tongue and hand and brain 
refuse their office he labors still. Around him gathers 
every thing that makes life ])eautiful, and parting from it 
so hard, but there is no remorse, no thought of duties left 
undone to the country which in its sore need called to him, 
no obligations unfulfilled to those who had followed him to 
danger and to death. The only woman he has ever loved 
is there with tender hand to moisten the parched lips or 
wipe the gathering death damp from his l)row. Their 
children and grandchildren are at their feet. From a 
grateful country there has come up in a thousand forms the 
utterances of love and reverence. Those lately in arms 
against the cause he served have generously and tenderly 
united in each expression of feeling. He looks abroad 
over the country whose union he fought to preserve ; 
everywhere there is peace and prosperity ; no hostile 
armies trample the soil, no hostile bayonets flash back the 
sun, the war drums long since are silent. The fields are 
already white with the harvest, the great gateways on the 
Atlantic and Pacific seas are open, and through them com- 
merce pours its generous tide. Master and slave are 
known no longer in the land where lal)or is honored and 
manhood is revered. To him, too, in those dreaming and 
waiting hours came the memories of those who have fallen 



21 

in battle by his side, or yielding since to the remorseless 
artillery of time, have gone before him. Even if he does 
not utter them how well we may imagine the thoughts that 
pass through his mind as he feels that he draws near to 
them — "Shall I see tliem again, McPherson, Eeynolds 
and Sedgwick, as they died at the head of their army 
corps, Eawlins, whom I loved as a brother, Hooker, as 
when his cannon rang down from among the clouds on 
Lookout's crest, Thomas, as he triumphed at Nashville, 
Meade, as he dashed back the fierce charge at Gettysburg 
or urged to the last dread struggle the ever faithful Army 
of the Potomac ? If it be so, I know they will meet me as 
comrades and brothers. Nor those alone, not alone the 
great chiefs who urged forward the fiery onset of mighty 
battalions. Shall I see again the splendid youth of 1861 as 
they came in all the ardor of their generous patriotism, in 
all the fire of their splendid courage, to fill the ranks of our 
armies? Shall I see them as when through the valleys the 
l)attle poured its awful tide, or as when the hills were made 
red by their glorious sacrifice ? I am very near them now. 
Almost I can behold them, although the light on their fiices 
is that which never was on sea or land. Almost I can 
hear their bugles call to me as the notes softly rise and fall 
across the dark valley through which I must pass. I go to 
them ; and I know there is not one that will not meet me 
as a father and a friend." 

Farewell, pure and noble citizen, wise and generous 
statesman, illustrious soldier, farewell. By these solemn 
rites which stretch from ocean to ocean, tenderly and tear- 
fully and yet gratefully still, a nation surrenders back to 
God the great gift which He gave in her hour of utmost 
need. 



^"N «3 1801 



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